“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.”

Far more critical than what we know or what we don’t know is what we don’t want to know.

For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life.

To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little. If you have too little confidence, you will think you can’t learn. If you have too much, you will think you don’t have to learn.

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.

It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.

It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor.

The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.

No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.

Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.

It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.

Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults.

When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.

Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question.

The name of freedom regained is sweet to hear.

Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realising you were the prisoner!

A gentleman is mindful no less of the freedom of others than of his own dignity.

To be free of belief and unbelief is my religion.

And when the time is right, I hope that African Americans will again look to the party of emancipation, civil liberty, and individual freedom.

In a free society we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior, but if we’re civilized people we publicly criticize that and don’t belong to those groups or associate with those people.

If our freedom is taken, the American dream will wither and die.

I think if women would indulge more freely in vituperation, they would enjoy ten times the health they do. It seems to me they are suffering from repression.